


A Terrible Assistant

by flightinflame



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Dirk Gently Needs a Hug, First Meetings, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), Sentinel/Guide, Sentinel/Guide Bonding, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Todd Brotzman is Bad at Feelings, forced soul bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 18:17:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15846750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/pseuds/flightinflame
Summary: Todd is having a terrible day, which seems to get worse when he runs into a man who appears to be his soul mate.Dirk is having an excellent day, which is shattered when he suspects Blackwing has trapped him once more





	1. Todd

**Author's Note:**

> My version of sentinel/guide is a form of soul bonding - sentinels have extremely heightened senses, meaning they often get overwhelmed by their sensory input, and a guide (often their soulmate, but can be another guide) is needed to help calm them and help them focus. Soulbonds are often, although not always, romantic.

Todd was having A Day. 

Probably the weirdest day he'd ever had, and that was saying something. He'd been fired (although he might get that back), and was being stalked by a corgi. He wanted nothing more than to collapse on the bit of his sofa that didn't have a spring sticking out, and relax for a bit, cursing the universe as a whole.

He unlocked his door and stepped into his apartment, to be faced with what appeared to be a young man half-way through his window.   
"Hi!"   
Acting more on instinct than anything he had thrown a shoe at the other man, who had scrambled further inside and then… attempted some kind of karate, dived over a cabinet, got shoved into a wall, and got rather angry at Todd's attempts at dislodging him from his apartment.

"Do you attack everyone who comes in here? Seems a weird thing to do but live and let live," the man queried, staring at him. Todd noticed two things. One, the man was quite clearly English, and secondly he was staring at him rather wide eyed, somewhere between fear and amazement.

"You can't just break in-"  
"Well quite clearly I can," the man answered, moving forwards to examine him, talking about changes in the flow of Todd's life. Todd stared, wondering why this man he had just met - this sentinel, this close and he could sense it - was asking him about his sex life of all things, and nodded awkwardly.

"An assistant, I knew it!" the quite clearly insane sentinel murmured. Todd wondered if perhaps he'd lost his guide suddenly - there were certainly cases of sentinels losing their minds in circumstances like that. If it was what had happened here, he needed to get the man to a hospital and quickly so that they could sedate him and help him to cope.   
"My name..." the man reached out for his hand, grabbing it, and Todd felt a sudden burst of warmth-trust-right that made him tighten his grip. The man swallowed before continuing. "...is Dirk Gently, I'm a detective. I'm on A Case." The man, Dirk, took a deep breath and ripped his hand from Todd's, severing the more intense connection but leaving a feeling of warmth in its wake. "I live here now," Dirk informed him, collapsing onto the sofa. "I'll be sleeping here tonight."

Todd decided that whatever had just happened, he wasn't dealing with it after the day he had. If the sentinel was as insane as he seemed, well, it could be someone else's problem. The other implications were just unbearable to consider - the man was insane, and anyway Todd had no job, and no way of dealing with his responsibilities to his sister let alone a soulmate. 

Getting an insane soul mate was probably another punishment from the universe. He gripped the man by the shoulder, careful to avoid skin to skin contact, and threw him out into the hall.  
"YOU ARE A TERRIBLE ASSISTANT!" a voice shouted after him, and Todd went to sit on his couch, trying to ignore the aching emptiness inside of him.


	2. Dirk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (What Priest says here is heavily based on something I was told during sex-ed at school, and it feels great to be including it here from him. Because it is an awful message to tell any child)

Dirk was excited. He was on A Case. Which was important for many reasons, but most of all because it meant he would be doing what the universe wanted. He would be helping people with Important Things, and that meant he was being useful. And being useful was good for even more reasons than cases were important, but one of those reasons was that it meant he wouldn't have to go back There for the foreseeable future. If he was doing what the universe wanted, it wouldn't stop him.

Not to mention of course the man he had seen with the future-him. A guide, and despite his issues with guides he'd been utterly thrilled because that implied he would have someone to talk to. He did get everso lonely, and there was a new person and a new person was just as exciting as A Case.

He grabbed the kitten and then went to check on the New-man who really did need a better name. Climbing in really was no bother, and he was halfway inside when he got a shoe thrown at his head. New-man was honestly quite rude, but first impressions weren't going to put him off and anyway everyone had bad days.

The other man continued trying to slap him, so he retaliated, and then there was an issue with getting slightly non-vertical thanks to a kitchen cabinet that was really in a rather silly place, and then the New-man continued trying to push him out of the apartment.  
"Do you attack everyone who comes in here? Seems a weird thing to do but live and let live," he asked, trying to ignore the tug he could already feel in his chest. This wasn't right, he had A Case.  
"You can't just break in-" New-man protested, causing Dirk to frown.  
"Well, quite clearly I can." Dirk pointed out, beginning his well-practiced spiel about the flow of the universe and changes. He couldn't help hoping that the man was an assistant, that he had just imagined the way things had felt a little calmer when he had first seen him. The man nodded, and he grinned.  
"An assistant, I knew it!" Everything was working out for once, and this Case was a good one. He had an assistant, and he hadn't had one of those since he left There. Beaming from ear to ear, he held out his hand, grabbing New-Assistant's own as he went to introduce himself.  
"My name is..."

_He was eight years old, crying on the hard bed because the lights hurt him, and Colonel Riggins had sat beside him, holding him close, talking about shielding and calming, and offering him a pill. He had taken it without a second thought._

_From then on he'd known where the Colonel was, and it had helped. He hadn't felt quite so alone, even if he knew he was still an annoying child - the Colonel would leave him with Moloch or Lamia, or let him sit in the corner of the office reading one of the books he had chosen, and things were easier. He'd been given hugs and he'd felt like things were maybe going to be alright again now._

_He'd been a child then. He hadn't known._

_***_

_Colonel Riggins had to go away. He hadn't even told Svlad that he was leaving, just gone, and then there had been a knock at the door. At first he'd considered not reacting, just lying still, but a laugh made him aware of who was there. He stood, hands behind his head, non-threatening, head bowed, feet shoulder width apart, back straight-  
"Svlad Cjelli, Project Icarus."  
"Yes Mister Priest?"_

_"Riggins has had to go away for a while, which means you're without a guide-"  
For one horrible moment, Svlad had thought that Mister Priest was the replacement. He knew that he could be annoying but surely Colonel Riggins didn't hate him that much he hadn't been that bad-_

_Mister Priest chuckled, sitting down on the bed and signalling for Svlad to join him.  
"Well, we don't want that. Don't want any subjects getting ideas into their head about being difficult, about escape-"  
"No Mister Priest."   
"So we're going to find someone else for you." He paused, reaching into his pocket and pulling out some paper. For a moment, Svlad thought that Colonel Riggins might have left him with something new to read, but then Mister Priest opened it. There was little there, only some writing about Christ and God, and a picture of two puzzle pieces joined, and then another of one of the pieces torn open by the removal of the other.  
"This is you Svlad," Mister Priest told him, tapping on the image of the broken piece. "Brought you this so you can learn all about the dangers of letting your soul be connected to strangers. Each guide you get keeps part of you with them, and eventually there'll be nothing left. Maybe then we'll have to stop our little games. No one in the real world would want you anyway, so it’s a kindness really. Make sure you don't get anyone else killed. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"  
"Yes... Yes Mister Priest."  
He ruffled Svlad's hair and walked away, leaving him with the leaflet.  
"The doctor will be along soon."  
Svlad read the leaflet when he was left alone, feeling more confused than anything. _

_He didn't believe in God, not any more. No one ever answered his prayers.  
He believed in the devil._

_***_

_He was passed between guides, sure he was leaving fragments of souls with each of them. He tried refusing to swallow the pill once, so Priest just broke his jaw and made him take it anyway. Most of the guides barely noticed him, rarely bothering to provide the physical contact which helped with his sensory control. They were just another test, to see who could control him, to see whether anyone could provoke the right reaction to the tests. A few months of failure and he would be moved on again._

_Every night he laid in bed on top of the covers, and thought about that leaflet Prie-Mister Priest had shown him. Even if he had a soul mate, his soul would be too shattered for them now. It was just another tool for Blackwing to use._

 

It wasn't fair, that they were interfering. He knew this was a test, wondered if he was meant to say Svlad or Icarus. He made himself be strong.  
"My name is Dirk Gently," he murmured, not managing to meet the guide's eyes. He wondered which food they had hidden the pills in this time. "I'm a detective. I'm on A Case." The last two words were almost pleading. He made his way to the sofa, trying to resist being brought in yet. If they were going to use drugs to bring him in, it was better to be laying down than fall from standing. "I live here now, I'll be sleeping here tonight."

He closed his eyes and waited for the pain to start, a voice in the back of his head telling him that Mister Priest would be hidden somewhere, watching - the man would change his aftershave most weeks, never let Dirk know when the door would open to see him.

It was the guide who grabbed his shoulder, and pulled him to his feet. He was so startled he shouted out, but the man didn't seem to hear, shoving him out into the corridor.

There were no agents waiting. 

For the first time since the contact, a childish flicker of hope reared its head.  
"You are a terrible assistant!" he shouted, and Mister Priest didn't approach.


End file.
